Attracting the attention of the world with the tower, spreading the spirit of the times with poetry

The original intention of the “ Stork Tower Cup ” Poetry Culture Festival is to integrate cultural resources, improve cultural taste, highlight humanistic charm, form brand advantages, and successfully launch cultural festivals with local historical and cultural characteristics and sensational effects, allowing the masses to experience the unique charm of Chinese national poetry culture as well as to promote and inherit the cultural treasures of the Chinese civilization. It  cultivates their enthusiasm to love and build a hometown, and build a platform for the realization of the great dream of "Building Five Yongji".

"The First Stork Tower Cup Poetry Culture Festival" was co-sponsored by the Chinese Poetry Society, the Chinese Poetry Society, the Chinese Writers Association Poetry Publishing House, the Shanxi Poetry Society, the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Yongji Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, and the Yongji Municipal People's Government. In order to ensure the success of this event, Yongji City Party Secretary CHEN Jie and the former Mayor ZHU Xiaodong personally took charge and held many coordination meetings to study and solve various difficulties and problems encountered in the preparation of the event. The Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee decided to establish the Yongji Stork Tower Cup Cultural Festival Organizing Committee, with Mayor ZHU Xiaodong as the director. Seven activity groups were formed by the Municipal Party Committee Office, the Government Office, and the Propaganda Department to advance their respective tasks gradually and steadily.

 "Stork Tower Cup Poetry Competition" is an important chapter of the poetry culture festival

It attempts to attract the attention of Chinese people all over the world by the poems themed by "Stork Tower" and "Climbing the Stork Tower". The first year of the New Poetry Collection focused on online media publicity, and the second year focused on publicity in print media. The third year located a romantic theme of "May all lovers become family members". It inspired the creation of many poets, particularly young people, accounting for an unprecedented scale of influence. Based on this, more themes have been initiated this year such as Yongji’s historical sites, historical and cultural heritage, geography and customs. Representative hashtags have gone viral including Stork Tower, Pujindu, Iron Ox, Ancient City of Puzhou, The Story of the West Chamber, Pujiu Temple, Wangguangu, Wulaofeng, Shundu Puban, LIU Zongyuan, and YANG Guifei(Imperial concubine YANG).

In the past four years, the news of "Stork Tower Cup" poetry solicitation has appeared in newspapers and magazines such as "Chinese Poetry", "Poetry Magazine", "Chinese Culture News", and "China Couplets Newspaper". Nearly 200 poetry forums update information about this poetry festival from time to time, for instance, "China Poetry Network Forum", "Chinese Poetry Net" ,and "Reader Forum". Moreover, social media (official Weibo account and WeChat account of Yongji Stork Tower Poetry Festival) and official websites (Yongji city government website, Yongji Tourism website, and Stork Tower website ) are constantly updated with the latest news of the cultural festival. A total of 31364 works were collected for the Poetry Competition, including 22,462 old-style poems and 8,902 new poems. On average, nearly 4,000 people contributed from 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions across the country, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan as well as from other countries such as Singapore, Australia, Canada, the United States, South Korea, Japan, Germany and other regions. The quantity and quality of solicited poems are at a high level in the country. It has been highly praised and fully affirmed by the leaders of the Chinese Poetry Society and the Chinese Poetry Society. The first-prize works were rewritten by a prestigious calligrapher of the China Book Association and will be permanently displayed in the Stork Tower. Therefore, it promotes Yongji with a nationwide publicity, and it also enriched the cultural heritage of the Stork Tower.

Establishing "Hometown of Poetry" and "House of Poets" to develop a unique culture

 The poem "On the Stork Tower" exhibited the art of Tang poetry to the extreme, and promoted the "Stork Tower" as a sacred place of arty poetry, and therefore Yongji's poetry culture has also been vigorously promoted and developed by leaps and bounds. Related non-governmental organizations have also been active for many years, which has played an active role in promoting the development of Yongji's poetry culture and won the title of "Advanced County of Chinese Couplets Culture". In order to build a harmonious culture, cultivate civilized customs, and promote cultural innovation and prosperity, the city will continue to enrich local life, improve their cultural taste, and enhance their overall quality for sustainable development in all aspects. In early June 2011, the Yongji Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government held a  meeting "Hometown of Poetry" to commend "Yongji No. 3 Middle School", "Yongji Ginkgo Primary School", and "Tsinghua Cement Factory" who had set good examples of introducing poetry to schools and enterprises. It calls on all units in the city to carry out poetry education activities, setting off an upsurge of learning poetry, loving poetry, and creating poetry. Poetry can enlighten people's thinking and inspire their ambition. In August 2012, the Shanxi Poetry Society gave a high evaluation to the creation of Yongji’s poetry and awarded Yongji City as a "City of Poetry". At the same time, two administrative villages and two schools in Yongji were awarded the "Village of Poetry" and the “School of Poetry". The Chinese Poetry Society and the Chinese Poetry Society awarded Yongji the honorary titles of "Hometown of Chinese Poetry" and "Home of Chinese Poets". The promotion of poetry culture formed a harmonious and promising urban culture.

Integrating local cultural elements into infrastructure construction for appealing charms

 In the construction of urban infrastructure, Yongji City has always insisted on and committed to integrating cultural context into urban planning, fully digging out local cultural resources, using literature to make up the city, and striving to show the world a cultural, happy and peaceful city image. Yongji has implemented the core area renovation project and invested 200 million yuan to build the Yongji Shundu Cultural Center, which integrates large-scale conferences, performances, gatherings, exhibitions, readings, and exchanges, including the People’s Theater, museums, exhibition halls, and Yongji book centre, library and cultural square. To further the original construction of the Cherry Blossom Garden and Willow Garden, the city has built the Pu Garden with the theme of Pu opera culture and the Shundishan Urban Forest Park with the theme of Shun Di culture as well as the Sushui Riverside Park with the theme of poetry culture. In the layout of urban functions, it has fully grasped the guidance of culture to urban construction, and set up historical and cultural sculptures in various park squares in the urban area, so that every street, every park, and every building contains a strong cultural atmosphere. In accordance with poem culture, the city also carried out the activities to introduce poem culture into the scenic area by means of re-editing the commentary of Pujiu Temple, Tang Iron Ox, the Stork Tower and other scenic spots in the language of poetry, and putting up poem couplets in the scenic area and Puzhou Tang Street. The cultural festival is an opportunity to expand the publicity to the outside world and show the charm of poetry and local culture.

Authoritative priority, collaboration and cooperation are the prerequisites for a successful cultural festival

The preparations for the on-site activities of the first Stork Tower Poetry Culture Festival were highly valued by the leaders of the Yongji Municipal Party Committee, the Municipal People’s Congress, the Municipal Government, and the CPPCC. The leaders of the four major groups inspected and implemented in person with the designated task. Du Xuewen, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the Provincial Party Committee, Zheng Bonong, former member of the Party Group of the Chinese Writers Association and honorary president of the Chinese Poetry Society, Han Zuorong, the former editor-in-chief of "People's Literature" and the current vice president of the Chinese Poetry Society, and more than 50 provincial and municipal leaders as well as celebrities in the poetry world, famous poet Shu Ting, and her husband Mr. Chen Zhongyi, together with more than 6,000 audience attended the first large-scale Poetry and Music Reading of "Going to the Next Level". Famous artists Xiao Xiong, Xu Huanshan, Wu Jingan, Yan Xiaopin and others performed on stage. In the second Stork Tower Poetry Culture Festival, we divided old and new poems for separate contributions and awards. We organized two poetry gathering activities, "Puban Spring" and "Chinese Poets Visiting Yongji". Zheng Xinmiao, president of the Chinese Poetry Society, and other Chinese poets and scholars were invited to visit Yongji. At the third Poetry Festival, we invited award-winning authors to share their works. The atmosphere of the venue was strong, and the majority of poetry lovers had better exchanges. In addition, during the whole process, we followed the central government’s requirements for frugal organization and meeting, and achieved reasonable compliance, efficiency, pragmatism, and frugality.

The success of the Stork Tower Poetry Culture Festival has revived people’s memories of the Stork Tower, deepened their understanding, relived the artistic conception of the "higher level", and brought the "stork" back to life. The reputation of the Stork Tower in the poetry world has attracted more poets and young people who have produced excellent works for Yongji. It has become the "cultural sacred place" in the hearts of Chinese at home and abroad, which in return promotes Yongji's profound historical and cultural heritage as its rich tourism resources. The contribution of the Stork Tower to the development of Chinese poetry culture will be recorded in history, and only the Stork Tower can carry this thousand-year-old cultural heritage. The two attractive titles of "Hometown of Chinese Poetry" and "Home of Chinese Poets" have injected new elements into the charm of Yongji. It has also established a reputation throughout the country. The brand has promoted and spurred the vigorous development of local cultural tourism. The number of tourists and various incomes have shown double-digit growth for several consecutive years.